UMaine basketball teams will face new travel schedule this season
There is a notable difference this year in the University of Maine men’s and women’s basketball team schedules, which America East released Tuesday.
The men’s and women’s teams will play two league games in three days instead of two games in four days.
The vast majority of the games will be played on Thursdays and Saturdays, while last year’s format featured games on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The main reason for the switch is that the league has tried to limit the amount of travel between games. The new schedule is expected to be in place for at least two seasons to see how it works, according to Matt Bourque, the senior associate commissioner of America East.
“The league’s athletic directors and senior women’s athletic administrators wanted to reduce the number of road trips,” Bourque said.
“I don’t know if it will save money or reduce the amount of class time they will miss, but it will save some wear-and-tear on the student-athletes.”
For example, UMaine and New Hampshire will visit long-distance opponents Albany and Binghamton on the same Thursday-Saturday trip, swapping off opponents, and Albany and Binghamton will do the same thing when they travel to UNH and UMaine.
The one snag is there are nine teams in the league, so America East can’t divide it into five sets of travel partners like it used to when there were an even number of teams.
UMaine men’s basketball head coach Chris Markwood said when he was an assistant at Northeastern University in the Colonial Athletic Association, the team played Thursday-Saturday conference games, and he liked the format.
But the CAA had an even number of teams so each school had a travel partner, Markwood said. Hofstra University on Long Island was Northeastern’s travel partner.
“We would always play two games at home and two on the road,” he noted.
He feels America East has done a good job setting up the schedule to accommodate the teams, and he is anxious to see how it works.
“I’ve never seen this done with nine teams,” he said. “There will be some issues. There will be some discrepancies. There will be some complaints, but there always is.”
Bourque said the format didn’t get much support from coaches.
“It’s fair across the board,” Markwood said.
He added that the teams that manage the schedule the best will benefit. Teams will have less time to prepare for their Saturday opponent, and coaches will have to monitor players’ fatigue levels.
“It’s fine,” said UMaine women’s head coach Amy Vachon. “Everyone has the same schedule. Everybody is going through it. We’re all in the same boat.”
She said one difference is the players won’t get as much rest between games.
The UMaine men’s basketball team will have four league games that won’t fall into the two games in three days league format, while the women’s team will have two.
Each team plays 16 conference games.
The two games in three days block also doesn’t necessarily mean both games will be either at home or on the road. There are instances where one will be at home and the other will be on the road.